Your Skirt Steak Deserves An Enhanced Herby Crust

Is your favorite skirt actually a type of steak rather than a garment that hangs in your closet? If so, you might want to show it a little love by finding just the right recipe. While skirt steak is the original fajita meat, this cut of beef lends itself to other types of preparation, as well. One such presentation is developer Hayley MacLean's herby skirt steak recipe.

The mixture that's used to coat the steak before it cooks includes three different green herbs: basil, parsley, and mint. While MacLean does not specify the type of mint, spearmint is more commonly used in recipes of this kind as it's free of menthol— peppermint would tend to overwhelm the herb blend, making it far too minty. In addition to the herbs, the crust is flavored with garlic, shallots, crushed red pepper, and lemon juice, while some olive oil helps all of these ingredients to stick to the steak. Once all of these ingredients are combined, they are divided into two portions, one of which is used as a marinade for the skirt steak while the other is set aside for later use as a sauce.

When your skirt steak has sat in the herb mixture for at least two hours, it's ready to cook. MacLean uses a grill for hers and notes that you'll need to "brush the excess marinade off of the steak to keep it from burning." Not all of the marinade, however, since you still want enough herby mixture adhering to the meat to make a nice crust. As an alternative to grilling, MacLean suggests pan-searing, but you could also broil the steak because both are typical methods for cooking this cut.

If you'd like to experiment with a more atypical method, you could try making sous vide steak, which can be done even without a pricey sous vide machine as long as you can keep the water bath at a consistent temperature. While sous vide cooking won't make the herb crust crispy, finishing off the meat with a quick pan sear ought to do the trick. Once the steak is cooked, MacLean notes that it should be "allow[ed] to rest for seven [to] 10 minutes before slicing across the grain." When you're ready to eat, don't forget to top the meat with the rest of the herb mixture that you set aside before you use the rest as a marinade. While it's possible to repurpose the portion that came into contact with the raw beef, the USDA advises boiling it first to kill off any bacteria capable of causing food-borne illness.